FN + LN

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:56 PM -0400 5/29/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>So says the often accurate _Yale Book of 
>Quotations_, and so the major newspapers 
>reported in 1962
>
>But the "Dick" is frequently inserted into oral 
>quotings and paraphrasings (as well as later 
>writings and reminiscences)--BECAUSE OF Nixon's 
>tendency to refer to himself as "Dick Nixon" (as 
>well as just "Nixon") in place of a normal 
>second-person pronoun.
>
>Without "Dick": 10,000+ Google hits.
>With "Dick": 3,600+ Google hits.
>Without "Dick": 78 Proquest newspaper hits.
>With "Dick" 23 Proquest newspaper hits.
>
>--Charlie

Curiously (but not ironically), I did this same 
search several years ago, when I was working on a 
paper touching on what I called the "Dissociative 
Third Person", or "Bobdolisms" for short.  (The 
version I gave at the 2002 LSA was called "1‚3: 
Indexicality, reference, and the asymmetries of 
binding".)  Dole's political mentor was, of 
course, Nixon, so I ended up tracking down and 
finding on the internet a sound bite of the 
relevant Nixon speech (from after his loss to Pat 
Brown).  Sure enough, it's Dickless, but like 
Charlie I had the same sense that we remember it 
that way because in general the form of the name 
appearing in the Bobdolism is the one by which 
the celebrity is usually known (hence Bob Dole, 
not Robert).

Most of my examples [see below] came from 
athletes' using this "third person" for 
themselves (almost always in the form of proper 
names, though, not "he", "him", or "his", which 
makes "illeism" a less than ideal term), 
following the lead of Bo Jackson, who was the 
athletes' Nixon/Dole of the third person.  But 
here's one not involving a politician or athlete, 
just a self-styled celebrity contractor; note the 
reference to the "Nixonian third person".

[48]  Chris Clark, a Manhattan contractor, 
slipped into the Nixonian third person as he 
described his rational for rejecting homeowners 
without designers:  "Chris Clark can't sit down 
at the kitchen table with Mrs. Jones, who wants 
white cabinets, a granite counter and Miele 
dishwasher.  The room for dispute is too vast. 
Do you know how many white Formicas there 
are?"
(NYT 15 July 1999, F10, "Courting the Contractor")

And here's the actual Nixon quote, direct from the audio.

[49]  Just think how much you're gonna be 
missing.  You don't have Nixon to kick around 
anymore.   (Richard Nixon, concession speech 
after losing California gubernatorial election to 
Pat Brown, 7 Nov. 1962; usually recalled as "You 
won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore")
==============
Some cases of the athlete's dissociative third person:

[34]    What's wrong with [Larry] Johnson? 
Nothing, he insists.  "People know what L.J. can 
do," he said.  "I know what L.J. can do."
(basketball player Larry Johnson on his offensive 
struggles, NYT 22 Nov. 1996, B11)

[35]    Can they [the New Jersey Nets] re-sign 
Cassell?  "I have to see what's right for Sam 
Cassell," said Cassell, who wants a salary around 
$5 million.  "Money is going to be the key."
(basketball player Sam Cassell on his salary 
dispute with the Nets, NYT 22 April 1997)

[36]    Establishing a balance between being the 
world's greatest basketball player as well as a 
purveyor of cologne, footwear, briefs, and motion 
pictures has been a chore at times.  "As you look 
at my career, those things haven't defined 
Michael Jordan, he said.  "Michael Jordan's 
basketball skills defined 
him."
(M.J. on the difficulties of being M.J., NYT 9 Sept. 1997)

[37]     "I just want to win.  The bottom line is 
whatever Todd Hundley has do to help this team 
win, I'll do."
(Catcher Todd Hundley's travails in learning to 
be an outfielder, NYT 13 July 1998)

[38]a.   "I gave Pittsburgh every opportunity to 
sign Neil O'Donnell", O'Donnell 
said.
(Chicago Sun-Times 1 Mar. 1996, p. 110)

b.  O'Donnell, who was benched in the fourth 
quarter with the Jets leading, admitted:  "It's a 
hard thing.  I'm just doing what Neil O'Donnell 
can do.
(NYT 3 Nov. 1997, on travails of N. Y. Jets quarterback Neil O'Donnell)

[39]  "I'm just going to do the things Derek 
Harper has done for 10 years, and hopefully that 
will be enough."
(NYT 8 Jan. 1994, p. 32)

[40]  "I just want to go to a place where Howard 
Johnson is going to put up some big numbers."
(Nov. 1993 radio interview with baseball player 
on signing with Colorado Rockies)

[41]   I feel I'm just out there doing the sort of things Lenny Harris can do.
(baseball player Lenny Harris in radio interview on WFAN 29 July 2000)

[42]  He said he'd take of me, and it hasn't 
happened yet.  I want to be there, but I've got 
to look out for Tim Hardaway and Tim Hardaway's 
family.
(basketball player Tim Hardaway, complaining of 
his treatment by coach Pat Riley, NYT 29 Aug. 
2000, D2)
==================
and from Bob Dole's own mouth:

[43]  [Responding to Ted Koppel's query about 
whether he intended to stress the character issue 
in the campaign]
"I don't think so," Dole said.  "My view is that 
I'm going to talk about Bob Dole, and I've been 
doing a little of that."     (ABC "Nightline" 
show, March 1996)

[44]  I am very proud to be from Russell, Kansas, 
population fifty-five hundred.  My dad went to 
work every day for forty-two years and pround of 
it, and my mother sold Singer sewing 
machines...to try to make ends meet.  Six of us 
grew up living in a basement apartment.  That was 
Bob Dole's early life, and I'm proud of it, 
because we learned a lot about values, about 
honesty and decency and responsibility and 
integrity and self-reliance and loving your God, 
your family, your church, and your community..."
(Dole speech in Columbus, Ohio, 3/14/96)
==================

Crucially, the name shows up when the celeb is 
viewing himself (I have no examples from women) 
from the outside, so we would never hear Dole 
saying "That was my early life, and Bob Dole is 
proud of it", or "Bob Dole is going to talk about 
me", or pausing in the middle of a speech to 
murmur "Bob Dole needs to pause a moment to {take 
a sip of water/visit the rest room}".  (Except 
maybe on the Saturday Night Live parodies of him 
that were popular during the 1996 presidential 
campaign.)  Finally, here's NYT sports media 
reporter Richard Sandomir during the '96 campaign 
on this "affliction":

Some strange, grammatical, mind-body affliction 
is making some well-known folks in sports and 
politics refer to themselves in the third person. 
It is as if they have stepped outside their 
bodies. Is this detachment? Modesty? 
Schizophrenia? If this loopy verbal quirk were 
simple egomania, then Louis XIV [sic] might have 
said, "L'etat, c'est Lou." (Š)
Third Personspeak's greatest sports champion is 
Bo Jackson, the former football-baseball star. Bo 
knew Bo intimately, but he had a more distant 
relationship with "I."  Bo quoted Bo so 
frequently that Bo needed another Bo to speak for 
Bo. "The key was Bo wants to play baseball," Bo 
once said. "I want to see what Bo wants to do. 
Let me state a fact: Bo Jackson can play 
baseball."
(--Richard Sandomir, N. Y. Times Week in Review 10 Mar. 1996, p. 2)


LH

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